


Just a Cold

by Bokuaka_trash



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Crying, Heavy Angst, Hurt Lance (Voltron), I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I'm Sorry, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, M/M, Oops, Pining Keith (Voltron), Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 08:16:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13314150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bokuaka_trash/pseuds/Bokuaka_trash
Summary: Lance is feeling under the weather but goes on the mission anyway. Coran said it was going to be easy, a quick in and out. Lance just has a small cold. Everything will be fine. Right?





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't hate me for this! I love everyone on the Voltron team I just, like to make them suffer. Hope you guys like it!  
> Also I would like to thank Cap from captaingemstone for beta-ing this for me!

Lance woke up to the sound of alarms blaring. He shot out of his bed but had to take a second to overcome his loss of balance. He had a slight headache and his throat felt scratchy, but he had fought with much worse. It was just a cold, nothing he couldn’t manage. He quickly put on his paladin armor and ran to the main deck.

 

Lance reached the deck at the same time as Hunk. When the two entered, Allura told the paladins what they were up against. 

 

“We have received a distress signal from the planet Zeuxin. The Galra have taken an entire village and they want us to save them,” she explained, “the village was full of children and they fear what will become of them should the druids get a hold of them.”

 

“This mission should be fairly easy, it is only a small fleet. Now go to your lions and save the Zeuxians!” Coran shouted. He sounded far too enthusiastic for this mission so early in the morning.

 

The five paladins quickly ran to their hangars and left in their lions.

 

“Lance and Pidge, I want you to sneak onto the ship and release the prisoners,” Shiro shouted into the coms. “Keith, Hunk, and I will distract them and take down any fighters that follow.”

 

A chorus of “ _ yes, Shiro” _ followed as the five lions split up. Pidge and Lance use the stealth gear Pidge had installed in the green and blue lion to sneak on the main Galra ship. Upon entering the ship, the two paladins are faced with a small group of sentries. Lance immediately begins shooting to protect Pidge as she slashes any sentries that dare get close enough.

 

When the sentries have been taken care of, Pidge turns to Lance and says, “You go on ahead and search for the Zeuxians. I’m going to try and hack into the ship to block the cameras so you can get them out.”

 

“Sure thing. Yell if you need me to come back or if you find a map of the ship,” Lance responds.

 

With a small nod to each other, the two paladins split up. Lance went to the right and Pidge went to the left. As Lance ran in the dimly lit hallway of the Galran ship, his head began to pound with every step he took.  _ Not now, _ he thought.  _ I can’t be sick. The team is relying on ME to free the Zeuxians and I’ll be damned if I can’t do something so simple. _

 

With this in his mind, Lance pushed himself to run even faster. Soon Lance came to a series of three hallways. “Hey Pidge, you got that map yet? I don’t know which hall-“

 

“Not now Lance! I’m busy downloading the ships database. Just find the prisoners so we can get out of here!” Pidge snapped.

 

Shocked and a little hurt at Pidge’s attitude, Lance just picks the middle hallway and hopes for the best. “I just wanted to know which hallway to go down,” Lance mumbles to himself. As he runs through the ship, Lance loses track of the lefts and rights he’s made. After searching for what felt like hours (which was only about ten minutes) Lance was beginning to get dizzy. Eventually Lance leaned against a wall to catch his breath.  _ Maybe this cold is worse than I thought.  _ Leaning on the wall, Lance hears a guard yelling from the left. He can’t tell what the guard is saying but he knows that the Zeuxians must be nearby.

 

Stealthily, he makes his way towards the yelling guard. 

 

“Will you quit your sniveling! If I hear one more cry I swear on Zarkon that I will kill you before the druids even have a chance to look at you.”

 

The guard lifts his blaster to the Zeuxians locked in the cell. A shot from Lance’s bayard kills the guard before he can even aim at one of the prisoners.. Taking the key from the guard’s belt Lance unlocks the door and faces the Zeuxians. “I’m the blue paladin of Voltron. Follow me and we will get you guys home. How’s that sound?”

 

Quickly Lance leads them back the way he hopes Blue is. As Lance is leading the frightened group of Zeuxians to the lions, he uses the coms to tell the others that he found the Zeuxians. “Hey guys I’m-“

 

“Shit! They must have called for backup! I don’t think we can hold up much longer out here without Voltron.” Keith shouts into the coms.

 

“The castle is under heavy fire! We cannot give support for much longer,” Coran adds.

Before Allura or Shiro can give out an order to retreat or continue fighting, a large Galra battleship turns towards the red, yellow, and black lion. It begins powering up a large energy blasts and locks in on the red lion and fires. Before the blast can hit Keith, the yellow lion pushes the red lion out of the blast.

 

“Keith, are you okay!?” Hunk asks frantically.

 

“Yeah. I’m fine. Thanks, Hunk.”

 

“Paladins, fall back! There is no way the lions can take a blast from that thing. Retreat to the castle and we will regroup from there. Lance, Pidge, you guys come back too. We might need Voltron,” Shiro commands.

 

“We need to hurry!” Lance yells out to the Zeuxians. Eventually, Lance makes it back to where he and Pidge entered the ship and it is a miracle that Lance got them back to Blue in one piece. Lance begins to load the Zeuxians onto Blue when a large group of sentries enter through a doorway on the right. Lance shoots as many as he can and risks a glance back towards his lion. When he sees the last of the Zeuxians enter Blue, he tells her to take them back to the castle.  _ No cub, I cannot leave you here! How will you return to the castle if I leave you here? _

”Just go, Blue! Get back to the castle so that the Zeuxians get home safe.”

 

Unable to argue any further with her paladin, Blue leaves for the Castle of Lions while Lance continues to fight off the sentries. Lance’s headache has only worsened throughout the mission. Unable to focus completely, a stray shot hits his shoulder. The sentries continue pouring in and when he is surrounded, Lance can’t fight a wave of nausea and pain that causes him to fall to the ground. A Galra walks out of the sea of sentries and stands over Lance’s collapsed form. 

 

“Well isn’t this a surprise. We seem to have caught a paladin of Voltron. It would have been better if it was one of the others, but the blue one will do just fine.”

 

That was the last thing Lance heard before the Galra soldier knocked Lance unconscious.

Back at the castle, when all of the lions entered their hangars, Allura opened a wormhole to get them all to safety. Keith, Hunk, Pidge, and Shiro met outside of the hangars after leaving their lions. “Hey, guys, has anyone seen Lance? I know I saw Blue come back to the castle, but I don’t think he’s left the hangar. Do you thinks he’s okay? What if he’s hurt? OR what if-“

 

“Hunk, calm down. I’m sure Lance is fine. Let’s just go into Blue’s hangar and get see what's taking so long,” Shiro placated. They all cared about Lance, but Hunk was just a worrywart and they all knew he wouldn’t calm down until he saw Lance was alright himself.

 

When they entered Blue’s hangar, the lion bent down and opened her jaw to release the Zeuxians. What shocked the paladins was that rather than being overjoyed after being saved, they were all eerily quiet as they exited the lion. What was even more concerning was that there was not a blue paladin among them. Upon realizing that Lance was not with them, Keith went up to one of the few adult Zeuxians in the group and asked, “Where is the blue paladin? Is he still on Blue?”

 

Solemnly, the Zeuxian shook her head. “The blue paladin protected us so that we could escape. We were surrounded, and he stayed to fight off the Galra. The lion left with us on board before he entered. I am deeply sorry, but I do not know what happened to your friend after we left the Galran ship.”

 

A sense of dread filled Keith when he turned towards the others. “Fuck. Guys, we left Lance on the ship.”

 


	2. Chapter Two

Lance woke up laying on a cold hard surface with a splitting headache. Even just lifting his head used too much energy and he immediately fell back to the ground.  _ Where the hell am I? I remember waking up to an alarm and- oh, yeah. The Zeuxians. At least they got back to the castle. I guess that means I’m still on the Galra ship. Maybe I’m sicker than I thought.  _ From the ground, Lance peered at his surroundings. He was locked in the same cell that he had just saved the Zeuxians from. How ironic.

 

Unable to do much else, Lance slipped back into unconsciousness.  _ Maybe if I can just sleep off this headache, I can come up with a way off this ship. Easy mission, my ass. _

 

“Fuck! How did we leave him? He’s so fucking stupid. We said to pull back, not stay like an idiot!” Keith yelled. When Keith realized what they had done he shoved the Zeuxian away and turned to the other paladins. Unable to release any of his pent-up anger and adrenaline from the fight, Keith starts punching Blue’s leg.

 

“How could you leave him like that!? He’s your paladin!” Each word was separated by a punch to Blue. “How! Could! You!”

 

Shiro came up and wrapped his arms around Keith, pulling him back so he would stop kicking the lioness. “Keith, calm down. We are going to find him.”

 

Shiro turned Keith around to face him and wiped the tears from his face. All four of the paladins’ stomachs were full of guilt. Thoughts of  _ how did we leave our teammate? How did we not notice that Lance wasn’t flying Blue? Why did he stay? Why didn’t he ask for help?  _ echoed in their minds.

 

While the paladins were standing around, wondering how everything went so wrong, Allura and Coran walked into the hangar.

 

“Paladins, what is taking so long?” Allura demanded. “You are supposed to meet on the deck after a mission. And where is Lance? I swear if he is hiding somewhere to get out of the briefing-“

 

“Shut up, Allura!” Pidge shouted.

 

All of the sounds in Blue’s hangar quickly came to a stop. Usually, the violent outbursts came from Lance or Keith. They never came from Pidge.

 

“Lance stayed on the ship so that the Zeuxians could escape. Don’t just assume he’s trying to get out of things.”

 

There was another moment of silence before Keith spoke up, stepping away from Shiro. “This is our fault. We never listen to him on the coms,” Keith stated. After such a violent outburst, his sudden calmness was frightening. “We cut him off. I don’t know if he was going to call for help, but he tried to say something to us and we didn’t listen. We never listen. Fuck.”

 

Tears continued rolling down Keith’s face. 

 

“We need to find him,” Hunk spoke up. “We can’t leave him there. I don’t even want to think of what they will do to him.”

 

Allura was silent. It was obvious to everyone in the hangar that she didn’t know what to say. She never meant to speak badly about Lance, but now she was thinking over the battle and realized that Keith was right. She didn’t listen to one of her paladins and now the Galra have him.

 

“Okay. Our top priority is to find Lance. We need to bring him back home,” Allura eventually stated. The four remaining paladins quickly dispersed to find any way they could to rescue Lance.

 

The next time Lance woke up, he knew that he had a fever. Any movement he made caused his whole body to ache and shiver, but he knew that he couldn’t keep lying on the cold prison floor. Eventually, he managed to sit up and lean against the wall.

 

Lance began to go through his symptoms in his head. Headache, full-body ache, nausea.  He was sweating and light headed. Lance was pretty sure that what had been a simple cold has quickly morphed into some sort of space flu.

 

_ Of course, _ Lance thought.  _ Of course, it’s me that not only gets sick, but gets captured while sick. Way to go Lancey-Lance, you have truly outdone yourself this time. _

 

Lance knew that the castle was far away because it was hard for him to reach for his bond with Blue. While he was lost in thought, a Galra soldier came up to his cell and opened the door. The soldier roughly chained Lance’s arms together and dragged him to his feet. In his feverish state, Lance could hardly keep up with the fast pace the soldier set as they left the cell. When Lance stumbled and fell to the ground, the Galra simply dragged him across the floor until he got himself up again. “Where are you taking me?” Lance eventually croaked out.

 

Either the Galra did not hear Lance, or he chose to ignore the suffering paladin. After a while, the Galra threw Lance into another cell. Not long after, the area that Lance was in began to move.  _ So, they switched the ship I was on. Just great, now the others will have an even harder time finding me,  _ Lance thought to himself. Unable to remain awake any longer, Lance fell asleep with hopes of his friends coming to rescue him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos mean a lot. Feel free to tell me what you think or just yell at me for hurting Lancey Lance  
> I love him so much I swear


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry

_ Lance was back on the ship. He was walking out of his room towards the kitchen to get some food goo before morning training began. When he got to the doorway, he could hear voices talking. Listening from the doorway Lance realized that they were talking about him. _

 

_ “Lance is so annoying. Every time he opens his mouth, I want to punch his ugly face. Even just looking at him pisses me off.” _

 

_ Was that Keith? Lance knew that he egged Keith on, but he didn’t think that Keith hated him that much. Lance thought it was just friendly teasing. _

 

_ “I know. He always shows up and distracts me. When he comes into the lab he always asks what I’m doing. He’s too stupid to even understand the basics. I wonder how he even got into the Garrison, much less how he managed to stay in it for so long.” _

 

_ Pidge? Pidge didn’t really think that did she? Lance just wanted to hang out with Pidge. He always saw Pidge as another one of his little sisters. He only ever went into her lab to make sure that she was taking care of herself. He never meant to be so annoying. _

 

_ “He always come to me to complain and I’m sick of it. All he does is mope and complain that he misses Earth. Boohoo. I was nice to him because we shared a room at the Garrison and ever since he has just latched on. Honestly, I regret reaching out. We would all be better off without having to deal with him.” _

 

_ That couldn’t be Hunk. Hunk had been Lance’s best bud since day one in the Garrison. They were as close as two people could be. _

 

_ “I wish that he would just put effort in. All he does is drag down the team. All we ever do is compensate for Lance’s mistakes and one day it’s going to get an entire planet destroyed. I can’t believe that one person could be so useless and careless.” _

 

_ Shiro. The man that Lance has idolized for years. His leader. His friend. Is that really what Shiro thought about Lance? Lance thought that he was finally beginning to improve as a fighter and as a pilot. He thought he had finally made a spot for himself as the team’s sharpshooter. _

_ “If planets did not ask that all five paladins be present, I would never bring him on diplomatic missions. He truly is an embarrassment to the team and brings the image of Voltron down. It makes me sick to think that the hands of the universe lie in such a worthless fool.” _

 

_ The princess too? Is this really what his teammates thought about him? Lance couldn’t believe his ears. This couldn’t be true. There were tears rolling down his face but not a sound escaped him. How could he let a sound escape when he was already such a useless member of the team? Slowly, Lance let himself silently fall to the ground as he stared off into nothingness; the words of his comrades repeating over and over in his mind. _

 

_ “He’s so useless.” _

 

_ “Just a seventh wheel.” _

 

_ “I wish he would just get himself killed on the next mission.” _

 

_ “We should just find the real blue paladin.” _

 

_ “I can’t put up with him anymore.” _

 

_ “He should just leave and save us all the headache.” _

 

_ Lance couldn’t even differentiate between the voices anymore. They were all saying these horrible things about him. The more that they said, the more Lance realized they were right. They were just speaking the truth. He was never meant to be a part of this team. They didn’t need him. Nobody ever needed him. _

 

_ Lance began to withdraw into himself. This wasn’t something that he could fight or shoot away. He was powerless to stop the voices from tearing him down into nothing. He could hear cackling in the background that sounded hauntingly familiar, but Lance didn’t spare it a second thought. So what if there someone laughing at his pain. He couldn’t care.  _

 

_ His family didn't want him. They didn’t want him or like him. They obviously couldn’t even tolerate him. Lance allowed the negative words to wrap around him and keep him in oblivion. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLease don't hate me for this! Comments and kudos mean a lot so let me know what you guys think!


	4. Chapter Four

A searing pain to his entire body woke Lance up. The pain was white hot and he couldn’t think. Vaguely, Lance could hear someone screaming, but quickly realized that they were his own screams.

 

A croaky voice whispered into Lance’s ear, “Oh, have you come back to the real world, little paladin? What a shame, for you that is. I suppose you will have to be awake for the tests.”

 

Haggar.

 

Lance was in a room with the druids. He could hear the cackling once again.

 

The other paladins talking in the castle ship’s kitchen wasn’t real. It was just an illusion made by Haggar to trick him. His friends did care about him after all. Lance could feel a few tears slip down his cheeks, but these tears were not from sadness. They were tears of relief that his second family did not hate him after all, he was a true member of team Voltron.

 

“-adin. Answer me!” Haggar shouted.

 

Lance was hit with another bolt of tainted quintessence. Had Haggar been talking to him while he was thinking of his friends? Lance hadn’t even noticed. “Tell me, where is Voltron hiding! I am running impatient here and you will eventually tell me the truth.”

 

After a moment, Lance gathered the strength to respond to Haggar. “Voltron? What’s a ‘Voltron?’ I have never heard of that in my life.”

 

The next blast was the strongest one yet. The mix of pain and his fever caused Lance to blackout.

 

\---------------------

“Dammit! I can’t find anything! It’s like the Galra took Lance and then disappeared from the grid.” Pidge shouted from her laptop.

 

Even after searching for days, none of the paladins could find a single trace of what the Galra had done with Lance. Slowly, the Voltron team fell apart.

 

None of them could sleep. Shiro was haunted by nightmares of his time spent in the Galra prisons, but instead of it being him it was Lance fighting in the Pit. During the day, Shiro was startled by every dark shadow he came across. There was no one in the castle to distract him from his stressful thoughts and he could feel himself slipping further away from reality each day.

 

Pidge refused to stop searching for any signs of Lance. Every dead end and lack of a lead pushed her to look that much harder. When Pidge was alone, she was haunted by memories of all the times Lance would come into the lab and remind her to eat or sleep. Each time she snapped at him and pushed him away. Lance knew that she appreciated it, right? Lance knew that she was only being stubborn and that she secretly loved when he wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, right? Lance was another older brother for her. She refused to let the Galra take him away from her before she could show him how much she loved him.

 

Hunk was a mess. He was no longer the sunshine of the team. There were no more room-brightening smiles. There were no more warm, healing hugs. Hunk had even stopped cooking. Everything he did reminded him of Lance. Hunk felt so guilty that ever since they had been launched into space he had become distant from his best bud. He had blown Lance off more times than he would like to admit in order to work on a project with Pidge, but Lance never complained. He just gave Hunk an “I understand, you two have fun alright?” and walked away.

 

Keith was constantly with the Blade, trying to use any spies in order to find where the blue paladin was being kept. All of the spies either had useless information or their information lead to nothing. Keith began training until he reached the point of exhaustion and then keep training.  _ If I was stronger, I could have saved him. I need to save him. _

 

At meal times, it was eerily quiet. There were no jokes thrown around. There was hardly any conversation at all. The team was drifting apart. Lance had been the one constantly pushing the team together and lightening the mood. Without Lance, it was too quiet. The castle felt like a ghost town.

 

On the eighth night that Lance had been missing, Keith knocked on Shiro’s door. It was so quiet that at first, Shiro thought that he had imagined it. Upon seeing that it was Keith outside of his door, he immediately let him in. “Keith, are you okay?” Shiro knew that nothing was okay, but he didn’t know what else to ask.

 

“Shiro what if-” Keith paused. Before continuing, he had to recompose himself. “What if we don’t find him? Shiro, I can’t lose Lance. I can’t lose him.”

 

Slowly, Shiro pulled Keith into his arms. It hurt so much to see his little brother so broken up about anything, let alone the worry he himself felt for Lance. He could feel a wet spot on his shoulder where he knew Keith’s tears were falling. “Keith, we are going to find him and bring him home. I promise.”

 

Keith pulled his head back from Shiro but remained in his arms. “I love him, Shiro. I don’t know what I’ll do if I never get to tell him. Even if he doesn’t love me, I just want him to know that I love him so much.”

 

Unable to say anything else, Shiro just pulled Keith closer to him.

 

Shiro could only hope that he could follow through on his promise to Keith.

\-----------------------

 

Haggar was sick of the roundabout answers from the blue paladin.

 

It had become a boring cycle. She would ask a question, the paladin would refuse to answer or would give her a snarky remark, and she would blast him with tainted quintessence. He no longer even screamed.

 

Haggar was bored.

 

She decided to turn the paladin into her next experiment. The only thing left for her to decide was what she would be doing with this fragile, human test subject. She took one day to think about it. For one day she did not enter the room to torture the paladin and instead she prepared for her experiment.

 

In the other room, chained to an exam table, Lance was left fearing when the next round of torture would begin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos mean a lot so let e know what you guys think!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter! Thank you guys so much for reading

Twelve days. Lance had been missing for twelve days and no one had any idea where he was being kept. The team had been run ragged. Tensions were high and everyone knew that a fight could break out between the four remaining paladins at any point. Allura knew that she had to put a stop to this.

 

“I believe it would be in the best interest of the team if we stop searching for Lance,” Allura announced.

 

The silence that followed her statement only encouraged Allura to continue. “We have been searching non-stop and have found nothing. It is time that we return to working as team Voltron. I will continue piloting Blue, Keith will pilot red, and Shiro will pilot the black lion.”

 

The four paladins were so shocked that no one could speak. After minutes of silence, one voice spoke up. “Princess, how dare you suggest such a thing. How dare you suggest that we stop looking for our friend -- no, stop searching for a member of this family.”

 

No one had ever heard such a dark tone from Coran. No one could even think of a time that Coran seriously disagreed with Allura. Not a word was said after. The four paladins were in shock that Allura could even contemplate suggesting that they stop searching for Lance.

The tension was broken by a broadcast that appeared on the screen.

 

It was Haggar.

 

“Why, hello, Voltron. I do hope that you are ready for a show.”

In the back of their minds, the paladins were hoping that this broadcast had nothing to do with Lance, but they all knew it was wishful thinking as Haggar stepped aside to reveal Lance.

 

Lance was a pile of skin and bones. His body was littered with bruises and cuts, with blood caked onto his face. Even through the video, they could see how labored his breathing was and how he never seemed to get enough air. As Haggar spoke, Lance tried to lift his head off of the table to look around but almost immediately his head fell back down.

 

“Now, paladins, I will be turning your ‘friend,’ into a new soldier for the Galra Empire. When I am done with him, he will no longer recall the faces of anyone he once knew. He will be a new kind of beast.

 

“I just can’t believe that none of you even attempted to save him. Maybe he truly is a worthless human to you after all.”

 

As Haggar walked towards him, her cackling could be heard in all corners of the deck. Four druids, each with a syringe filled with what could only be quintessence, surrounded Lance. Haggar stood above Lance’s head with her hands on either side.

 

Suddenly each of the druids plunged their syringe into Lance as Haggar created some sort of purple electricity that shot into Lances head.

 

At this point, no one could tear their eyes away from the screen. They were captivated by the atrocity of what was happening to the blue paladin. Lance’s body became tense as the quintessence traveled in his body. The paladins could practically follow the glowing purple substance as it flowed through his veins. His screams were gut-wrenching. He continued to scream until nausea caused Lance to cover himself in his own sick. Eventually the syringes and Haggar’s hands were removed Lance began seizing on the table. When Lance stopped moving, the paladins could no longer see the rise and fall of his chest.

 

After a few moments that seemed to last forever, Lance rose from the table with an eerie fluidity. When he opened his eyes, they were the same yellow, pupil-less voids that Haggar’s were. He got off the table to stand next to Haggar. His nails had blackened and elongated into claws and purple splotches were scattered over his skin.

Lance made a fist with his right hand and placed it over his heart. “Vrepit-“

 

Before Lance could finish pledging himself to Zarkon, his eyes began to clear. One eye remained the yellow eye of a Galra while the other returned to his ocean blue. He quickly looked to where he assumed the camera to be and whispered, “I’m so sorry. I love you guys. Please don’t hate me for this.”

 

A sad smile crept over Lances face, and what happened next seemed to happen in slow motion.

Lance used his newly clawed hand to stab into his chest and stop his own heart. 

 

“No! How could you fight my quintessence! That is not possible!” Haggar shouted before the broadcast was shut off. The frozen image on the screen was of a boy, no longer human, covered in purple markings and lying in a pool of crimson.

 

After watching the death of their friend, the remnants of the Voltron team was broken. Guilt and sorrow filled the room. All of them were thinking,  _ if only I had tried harder, if only I had listened, if only I hadn’t pushed him away, Lance would still be alive. _

 

The image of a corpse that hardly looked human anymore was ingrained into the paladins minds. Thinking of the smile that would cover Lance’s entire face and his bubbly laugh only reminded them of the thing Haggar made him and the screams he cried as his body was mutilated. Lance had gone through all of this pain alone and now he was gone. None of the paladins could tell Lance how much they loved him and how important he was to the team. Lance would never know that even just days without him resulted in the team falling apart.

 

Instead, Lance was gone forever. He would never return to the beach that he missed so much. He would never see his siblings or his cousins grow up. Me would never get to hug his Mama again. His body will be thrown into the vacuum of space, never truly laid to rest.

 

Pidge and Hunk were kneeled on the ground, clutching each other as close as they could. Both were releasing heart-wrenching sobs. Pidge couldn’t believe that her brother was really gone. Hunk felt nauseous that he would never get to see his best friend again.

 

Coran was as still as a statue. His eyes were releasing silent tears and the markings under his eyes seemed to have dimmed. He felt empty after witnessing a boy who he saw as a son take his own life in order to avoid becoming a part of the enemy.

 

Allura’s legs gave out and she crumpled to the ground, holding her head in her hands.

 

Time seemed to stand still for the paladins.

 

Eventually one voice spoke up. Shiro’s voice was raw from holding in his tears as he spoke to the team. “We are Voltron and we will continue fighting for the galaxies freedom. Lance gave -- Lance gave everything to save this galaxy and like hell am I letting that go to waste.” Shiro paused, looked at the princess, then started again. “We are fighting for Lance. And it is only because of that that we will ignore what you said before, Allura. Lance never would have given up on any of us, but dammit he would forgive anyone who gave up on him. It is only in Lance’s memory that I, along with the rest of us, are not walking out of this castle right now with the lions.”

 

With that, the paladins and Coran left Allura alone on the deck. Allura felt hollow, but she knew she deserved every word that Shiro said to her. She was ashamed that she wanted to give up on looking for Lance when he, an innocent child, was thrown unknowingly into her war.

 

What the paladins did not realize was that their pain was felt around the galaxy. Haggar had her video broadcasted to every planet it could reach. Each planet that watched could only feel the loss of such a wonderful soul. They remembered the light hearted and joyous human boy that visited them. They remembered his flirtatious, yet serious attitude at each planet. He drew each and every alien that he met in and they all remembered those oceanic blue eyes.

  
  


The team was no longer fighting for just the galaxy, but they were fighting in order to prove that Lance’s death was not in vain. Wanting to show that to the galaxy, Coran added a Cuban flag surrounded by a wave to each of the paladins uniforms. The flag represented Lance’s home and the people he was fighting to protect while the wave was Lance himself; strong and bold yet calming and reliable. 

 

The lions, also mourning the loss of Blue’s cub, mimicked the pattern. Each lion had the flag surrounded by the wave on their right hind leg.

 

The symbol spread throughout the galaxy as a symbol of resistance and freedom. Voltron was remembered as the savior of the universe, but the universe knew that Voltron’s success was only possible by the sacrifice of the human blue paladin, Lance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thats it guys! It's over, I'm done hurting Lance (for now)  
> Really thank you so much for reading this!  
> Comments and kudos mean a lot so let me know what you think of this and if you guys want to see anything else like it!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos mean a lot! Let me know what you think or if you just wanna yell at me that's fine too


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